A BRAND storyteller's P.O.V.

I don't care what you do, whether it's teaching, banking, consulting, or making cupcakes, you'd better know what value you create and what makes you different, helps you stand out from the pack. In an effort to do that, and in order to get YOU to consider the same exercise, I've considered my own "unique value proposition" below.

I work with words and tell stories that engage people. I believe that content is intended to connect people with useful advice and entertainment. Having fun and taking risks is highly-recommended, as is being yourself. I believe that all marketing content should be H2H: one human talking with another.

I’ve been a journalist for the last twenty years, and have used my reporting, researching, and writing skills on behalf of my writing clients. I've also been a teacher and a practicing lawyer, among other things. I want to briefly explain my unique value proposition (UVP), one that I believe helps me add value for my client base. Here are 5 keys to my UVP:

1. Versatility. I’ve always had the ability and desire to do and learn different things, no matter what I do. I actually enjoy adapting my skills and experiences to new situations and new ideas. I tend to be curious, a cross-disciplinary sharer, and a popularizer in my writing. The ability to learn quickly, adapt and make connections (of ideas and people across disciplines and geography) has always been key to the value I deliver. I take ideas and experiences from my work as a lawyer, a communications trainer, a reporter/journalist, a banker, and more, and blend them all together into something unique. I feel comfortable writing with authority about a multiplicity of topics, including psychology, leadership, motivation, innovation, new regulations/legal issues, economics, social media, management, finance, business relationships, trends in technology, and much more. When I don't know something, I ask someone or start researching and learning.

2. Highly Collaborative. I’ve worked well with others. I’ve shared my insights with editors, clients, and sources -- and have been the beneficiary of their sharing insights with me. I never connect my ego much with the content I develop. I’ve always viewed content development as a collaborative process where any/all suggestions that enhance readability are highly welcomed. For this reason, I've built strong, highly-creative, and very positive working relationships wherever I've gone. I ask for help; I help when others ask. I appreciate others.

3. Practical and Insightful. I’m practical because I’ve had a long career working in different professions, from legal to media to education to finance. I understand at a deep level that professionals often don’t have enough time to absorb all the theories and academic abstractions. What they want, and will share, is practical, actionable advice that can help them work better and be better. I always keep this foremost in mind when developing any content, especially for business audiences. Keep it brief, make it useful, offer practical advice.

As a business communication trainer for a decade, I worked every single day with talented Fortune 500 CEOs, CFOs, Directors, and international consultants. Yes, I trained them to present ideas, negotiate, hold meetings, and generally communicate better, but teaching is an interaction, not just a one-way street. I learned from them about the everyday challenges of running a global business. Does this global business perspective influence how and what I write? Yes, every single word and every single day. Having worked so long with business leaders, I understand their needs.

4. Amplification/Influence. I’ve developed a strong social media platform through which I've amplified and distributed my content for Harvard, MIT, The Boston Globe, and all my B2B clients. Moreover, I’ve requested, and had, other social media influencers share my content, from leading academics like Teresa Amabile and Francesco Gina of Harvard Business School to innovation guru Bob Sutton of Stanford and thought-leader Adam Grant of U. Penn’s Wharton School of Business. Content isn't king, but content plus connection is king. Having these influencers share my content not only amplifies it but bolsters its reputation and relevance.

5. Committed. I want to work for people who share my values. I believe in creating and sharing -- it’s in my blood. I like people who are collaborative, work across boundaries, show appreciation, and who value creativity.

Okay, so that's my first draft of my value proposition. We are all different and bring our differences to the table when we work to create value. Knowing who you are and how you like to work is the first step in understanding your value proposition. I hope you'll sit down, reflect a bit, and write your own . . . .it's a worthwhile exercise.

I've always had a reputation for speed, as being a writer who could get an editor or client the quickest turnaround (delivery time) in the business. When another writer admits, two days before a deadline, that they won't be able to meet their deadline, and assuming the editor simply can't extend that deadline, I'll get an email from said editor asking me to help out by writing the article. This happens to me once a month or so, so I know the word has gotten out. Chuck Leddy is fast, but it's not quite so.

I'm a fast learner, a fast organizer, and a fast writer. This doesn't mean I don't think as I go -- I think a lot (actually), but I'm always moving forward. As the legendary coach John Wooden used to tell his basketball players at UCLA, "move fast, but never hurry." I follow the same philosophy. I believe the key to moving fast is knowing exactly where you're going, to have a clear destination in mind. Most importantly, you need to be mentally present and self-aware to go fast. Sounds simple, but it's anything but . . .

It helps to know yourself, as the ancient Greek philosophers were so fond of saying. The more integrated and self-aware you are as a person, the more comfortable you are with your values and interests and weaknesses, the faster you can move forward. I like to observe, to learn, to share, to connect emotionally with others.

I'm a huge believer in looking inward before you glance outward. Paradoxically, it takes a lifetime to learn who you are, but this day-by-day investment in self-reflection allows you to make faster and better decisions, to be more creative and to immerse your entire self into what you're doing. We are our own North Stars, but we so often don't realize it.

The great Albert Einstein was once asked what he'd do if earth was facing a pending disaster (actually, this may be the case today) and he only had an hour to save the world. An hour to save the world sounds like a "rush job" if I'd ever heard of one! Did Einstein say he'd rush right into action? No. "If I had an hour to save the world," he said, "I'd spend 59 minutes defining the problem, and one minute solving it."

For us as human beings trying to do anything, from pursuing our careers to being good parents or friends or partners, or trying to do or decide anything else, "defining the problem" means understanding who we are, what values are important to us, and what legacy we want to leave behind after we die." Once you've figured out this stuff, which can take a lifetime, then just about everything else (like having a minute to save the world) will get easier.

So as I admit that I'm a fast writer, I know that my speed comes from a place of deep reflection. Sometimes, when I'm given two days to write something that might take another writer a week, I like to sit on my back porch for an hour and watch the birds who occupy the tree in my neighbor's yard. I sit there with all my senses engaged, watching the birds move from perch to perch, listening to their birdsong, smelling the air of a quiet afternoon, tossing breadcrumbs to get the birds closer. Is this time wasted?

Far from it. It's the best investment I can make. It empties my brain and engages all my senses, immerses me in another world for an hour. When I start working, I know exactly where I'm going, what I need to do. The world looks new again and my mind is ready to create.

I slow down in order to go fast. I like to lose myself to find myself. I love to wander to know exactly where I'm going.

You don't need to watch birds to gain the benefits of slow, you just need to immerse yourself in something different. Some people meditate or walk or do yoga or jog. I like nature because it doesn't really care about my concerns, my need to be creative or to make money or to satisfy my client's needs. I sit and become part of the natural scenery, and that helps me be fully present and focus on what's important to me. Observation and learning are core values for me, as is sharing whatever I've learned (even paltry things, like the splendor of birds).

​What I'm telling you is that slow is often the gateway to fast. You can miss so much when you hurry -- you can miss your entire life and all the joys within -- so try going slow before you go fast. It works for me. Find a way to make it work for you . . .How do you slow down to move faster?

Writers aren't well-known for their ability to take collective action. So it's been strange to see all of the petitions and public protests among writers, just in the Boston area, over the last few weeks and planned for the weeks to come. Writers are, at least in my experience, generally loners who prefer to listen to their own consciences and muses rather than work alongside others. It's a lonely job, writer, but the results of the last election have gotten writers up in arms and working together. This is a good development, but may not have much impact, I fear.

I wonder if the President-Elect is reading the hundreds of essays of denunciation and disgust aimed at him each week, and will these countless essays and op-eds, written as expressions of conscience, alter the conscience of the new President, assuming he does read them (and has a conscience)? These essays have been a consistent source of work for writers, journalists, and editorial boards (not to mention everyone else with a Facebook account) over the last 18 months. Have they changed anything?

The sad truth is this. If President Trump showed up at a demonstration of a thousand "angry" writers, grabbed a bull-horn, and insulted them all as "a bunch of scrawny losers with nothing better to do than bellyache and drink cappuccinos all day," what would happen next? Each writer would run to his or her laptop and we'd soon have a thousand more essays (and Facebook posts) denouncing Trump as a bully, which would likely have the same impact as the last thousand essays (and Facebook posts) denouncing Trump as a bully. I've been noticing a pattern, I guess I'm saying.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see writers disturbed and alarmed by the tone and anti-intellectualism of the new President-Elect. As a writer who believes in bat-crazy, evidence-based notions like science ("what do those book-reading egg-heads know that I don't know? I'm really smart, really smart!"), the value of different perspectives ("hey, did I tell you how smart I am? I have the answers, so don't need to listen to idiots!"), treating people with respect ("you bunch of idiots writing all that garbage should start treating me with the respect I deserve!" I'm smart and people love me, except for dumb-asses like everyone here today"), ethics in government ("why can't I run the government and make billions at the same time?"), and American democracy ("I won the election, so can do as I like, right?"), I share their concerns with the President-elect.

But as the proverb says: "the definition of crazy is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome." Neither the avalanche of essays nor journalists pointing to "the facts" have changed much of anything of late.

The tactics Trump is using to discredit journalists are working and he'll keep wielding them: lies, deflections, ad hominem attacks on opposition and dissent, fake news, "look at the birdie over there," etc. These tactics have worked really well not just during the election campaign, but in other countries around the world. We know what countries these are, so I won't mention any names. You don't beat a bully, a strong man, or any "leader lacking conscience" with a beautifully-organized and thought-out essay or a Facebook post asking said person to act reasonably.

It doesn't make me happy to report this fact. As a writer, I'd prefer to believe "the pen (or laptop, in my case) is mightier than the sword." But recent history, and almost all of history, really, tells me a different story.

I do think that public demonstrations are more effective in bringing about change than essays, but I'm not sure if they're effective enough to bring the change we really seek. What they do is act as collective expressions of conscience, and that is good for people who are frustrated by a worsening political climate. We will need community, now more than ever. Isolation is the enemy. People who want to change our politics should begin by collectively modeling good behavior. So if you believe in inclusion, practice inclusion in your own life and advocate for it wherever you have even a shred of influence.

Top-down change is tough, and will only get tougher as the credibility and integrity of our institutions (government, media, business, etc.) continues to erode, as it's been eroding for years (and not by accident, but by people who benefit from that erosion of public trust). As trust gets eroded from the top-down, we all have the option of building it back again from the ground-up in our own lives. That may be all we have.

We can live our values, we can model good behavior, we can share our values with the people around us. We don't need permission. Even if everything we loathe gets normalized (bullying, exclusion, the worship of money, the ends justify the means, etc.), we can act in another way.

Our actions define us far more than what we say or what we write, even for writers. I'm not in favor of prohibiting the writing of essays, of course, nor the banning of demonstrations by enraged literary types (I'm sure nothing terrifies Trump more than that), but I am in favor of finding tactics and strategies that at least hold the possibility of bringing about change, even when that "change" is standing up to protect the values one person may hold dear.

After reading so many essays and watching so much of what purports to be journalism today, and gauging its impact in bringing the country "back to its senses," I have a much better sense of what doesn't work. By the way, I'm deeply conscious that I've just added another essay to the growing heap, and this one will have the same impact as the rest. Do you have a better idea, dear reader, or a comment to offer?

Like it or not, we all live in a world that's being increasingly transformed by technology, and we carry most of this technology around with us in the form of smartphones and laptops (a ChromeBook 11 in my case). I submit most of my writing over a digital platform that organizes the workflow between my editors and my business clients. It keeps track of my payments, enables revision requests, lets me know via email when my work is published, and facilitates the sharing of articles over various social media, from Twitter to LinkedIn and more.

When I conduct interviews with sources, I generally use my Apple IPhone 4S and record the conversation over a mobile app that converts the call into an MP3 audio file. When I'm done talking to a source, I generally upload the resulting MP3 audio file to a website that transcribes the call, sending me a full transcript by email within 24 hours. The transcription website is called IScribed.com (highly-recommended), and it's cheap and easy to use.

Lately, I've also been turning those same MP3 audio files into podcasts for one of my clients. I do these podcasts when I interview business authors about their books. You can listen to my first two podcasts here. I recorded my first podcast by hooking a USB Microphone (called the "Blue Snowball" -- highly-recommended) into my Chromebook and then recording the live interview directly into my open SoundCloud account page. For the second podcast, I used my smartphone and voice recording app, combining it with earbuds that had a microphone attached to them so I could do it hands-free with good sound quality. I then uploaded the MP3 file to my SoundCloud account.

Podcasting has taught me a lot about sound quality and audio technology. My approach has been "one and done" -- I record one take and don't mix in music or edit the audio file. Why? Because I tried to do this (using a software program called Audacity) and discovered that mixing and editing sound using audio software is difficult and slow. I may learn how to mix and edit in the future, but for now I'm doing "quick and dirty" podcasts in one take, trying to get as much sound quality as I can with the (limited) resources I have.

Now that I know the basics of podcasting, much of it learned by trial-and-error and watching countless YouTube videos (not to mention talking to a generous podcast producer named David Klass by phone and later visiting a podcast studio in Cambridge, MA), I can say that it's been fun learning about a new technology (audio) my clients may want more of. I do enjoy learning, but learning new technologies is also part of what makes a writer marketable.

Does learning about sound quality and audio hardware take time away from my "core competency" of writing? Of course it does, but creativity can occur in different media other than writing. As a podcast host, I need to not only understand the topic under discussion, but I need to sound "conversational" for my listeners and put the guest at ease. These skills take time to develop, and with practice, I know I'll keep getting better.

Being open to learning and asking others for help are key drivers of success for all of us as professionals and as people. Learning about new technologies is an ongoing and often-challenging task, but it can and will support our professional development, making us more marketable and capable. I'll always see myself as a writer first, but who says a writer can't excel in the world of audio, video, and multimedia too?

What have been your recent experiences with learning new technologies, my reader friend? Feel free to share in the comments below . . . .

After a certain point, writing is largely about following your process. Your particular process and mine may be different, but the only way we find our unique writing voice is through following our process. I've come to my process after some twenty years of writing, and I follow it every time I write for a client.

Writers don't even necessarily need to understand their process, i.e., they don't need to map it out on a whiteboard next to their computer but they need standard ways of approaching work.

I have steps I take in the pre-writing phase, depending on the length of the article. If the piece is shorter, I tend to begin the research as soon as possible and then seek to find the structure of the writing as I go along. Once the research is done, I'll re-read my notes and then start to make a basic structure. For shorter pieces, this structuring process won't take long and can even happen on the back of a napkin. Obviously, you need a beginning, middle, and end, but you need to know the goal of the piece too in order to do it well.

As I research the work, I keep my goal in mind and look for a way to "hook" readers at the beginning. Sometimes the research will reveal an interesting fact or an engaging story or an amazing individual. Whatever is most engaging in the whole story is often the best place to start.

You also need to answer the "why" of what you're doing in the pre-writing phase. Are you seeking to educate the reader, seeking to sell (marketing is selling), or seeking to get the reader to act (advocacy). Your approach will be different in each case. Sometimes the client will tell you outright, sometimes not.